Starcraft AI blog

What is it with ZZZKBot? In most SSCAIT games it has stayed with its traditional 4 pool, but it has also been playing a variety of other builds against some opponents. Against Steamhammer it played mass sunkens into spire, a build that seemed tailored to beat Steamhammer’s anti-rush opening, which Steamhammer had never publicly played before the tournament, but which could have been discovered by local testing.

I set up ZZZKBot locally and tried it out. The github version is out of date, so I took the SSCAIT version. Does it win against Steamhammer’s standard ZvZ 12 pool? No, it loses, but what is this build it’s playing? I hadn’t seen that on the stream. It opened 9 pool, more drones, second hatchery in main, late gas, lair, queen’s nest—it was walking slowly toward greater spire! Steamhammer beat it before it got that far, though. ZZZKBot wrote no data file; it was not learning.

What about Steamhammer’s anti-rush build, as it is playing in SSCAIT? ZZZKBot played the same slow march toward greater spire. The anti-rush build is weak against 9 pool, but the greater spire build is worse and Steamhammer still got mutas out first and won.

Does it depend on the map? I ran 3 games on the same map as in the SSCAIT game, Roadrunner, versus the anti-rush build, and ZZZKBot aimed for greater spire and lost each game. In one game it managed to get out a couple guardians before dying. ZZZKBot never repeated its anti-anti-rush build.

ZZZKBot also never wrote a data file. I suspect that it keeps some extra static data that the SSCAIT server doesn’t serve up, an optional configuration file with counter-builds for specific matchups. That would explain its varied and effective build orders.